[The original Linux installation is described below. Nowadays it's
primarily a spare Windows XP machine, but I also I run out-of-the-box Ubuntu
still using GRUB as a boot manager, both with zero issues.]

These machines vary considerably from seller to seller. This one was a
Buy.com special and seems to be a fairly standard configuration with 512 Mb
RAM; the bluetooth radio was omitted. The system came with Windows XP Pro
pre-installed, and the 60 Mb disk set up in what appears to be a typical Acer
way: small hidden recovery partition; C drive on a primary partition, D drive
inside a logical partition, both using FAT not the dreaded NTFS.

USB (4 ports) and IEEE 1394 (one port) devices insert on the fly without
a problem, as do the various memory cards accepted by the built-in reader.
There is a single PC Card slot. There are no legacy ports. Battery life ihas
been excellent. It's big and heavy, but not bad at all.

As a Windows machine it's very good, although the 802.11s/b/g drivers
for the Intel Pro 2200 are a little flakey. As it turns out, however, the Acer
is a lousy choice for a Linux machine, because of the aforementioned Intel Pro
2200 and the Broadcom 440x, neither of which are supported natively within
Debian, and also because of the unusual IDE structure, which had the a primary
drive as /dev/hdc. Some of the newest distros (Debian Testing, Ubuntu) also
have a problem with the configuration of the SATA drive: the CD boots, but then
further installation fails the IDE drivers report no CDROM. Very peculiar, and
there are lots of discussions on various Linux boards about the problem.

Curiously, in china, the same hardware is marked with Linux
pre-installed: a custom version of Libranet. I was going to try that, but the
free version of the distro is in Chineese.

I was able to get the latest Knoppix to boot and run, as long as I
disabled framebuffers, and Knoppix even found and used the Intel Pro 2200
wireless. I find Knoppix too slow and klutzy to use on a regular basis,
however, and knoppix-installer failed to create a HD installation, either
because the script is buggy or because it couldn't deal with the wierd
hardware. So I fell back on a Sarge DVD, which found the CD properly and
installed a base system successfully, including GRUB as my new boot-loader. I
then used an old Linksys 802.11b PC card for networking and changed
sources.list to point to 'testing' hoping for usable drivers for the odd
hardware. The 'upgrade' to testing went well (once the CD is identified dutring
the Sarge install, you're past that problem). 'Testing' installed a spanking
new kernel, but the network drivers were still in source-only form. In any
event, I'm not the 'testing' type, and besides, there was no and no zed editor,
wo wmnd, and so on. Bummer!

So, I re-started with the Sarge DVD and re-installed from scratch,
reformatting the Linux partitions completely. Right away I could confirm that
the b44 module for the Broadcom sees the adapter, but that's about it. No
function. Furthermore, iwconfig sees no wireless extensions for the Intel Pro
2200, and there's no driver at all for that device. So back to the PC card,
which I knew was fine.

Everything else works pretty much out of the box. Alsa takes care of
sound; I use modconf to add the APCI kernel module, and install my usual sparse
windowmaker desktop. I modified the XF86Config-4 file to make the Synaptics
driver the main pointer and to make double-taps and dragging work.

I haven't tried printing (which would have to be through a USB port),
but I have added a couple of unofficial sources to get realplayer and java. I
don't use the modem so there's nothing to report there. I haven't figured out
yet if the built-in card reader is working and, if it is, what the device
assignments are. All that will come, I suppose, eventually.